Tag: stillness

What to leave behind?

New Year’s Eve has a particular stillness to it, a threshold moment where we pause with one foot in the familiar and the other hovering over what’s yet to come. It’s tempting to treat this night as a hard reset, as if everything behind us must be swept away to make room for something new. But wisdom rarely lives in extremes. It invites us to look back with honesty and tenderness, to notice what has shaped us, and to choose carefully what we carry forward.

Some things deserve to be packed gently for the journey ahead. Habits that have rooted us, relationships that have deepened us, moments of courage we didn’t know we had until they were asked of us. These are not accidental successes, they’re signs of growth, grace, and quiet perseverance. Carrying them forward isn’t clinging to the past, it’s honouring what has helped us become more fully ourselves.

And then there are the things it’s time to release. Old grudges that have grown heavy, patterns of thinking that shrink our hope, voices, including our own, that tell us we’re not enough. Letting go isn’t failure. It’s an act of trust, a decision to stop giving our energy to what no longer brings life.

As the year turns, we’re not asked to reinvent ourselves overnight. We’re invited to travel lighter, wiser, and more attentive. To keep what serves love, justice, and kindness, and to lay down what doesn’t. In that gentle discernment, we make space for God to meet us again, not as strangers to the future, but as people ready to step into it with intention and hope.

On Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve arrives quietly, like breath on cold glass. The world slows, even if only for a moment, and listens. Streetlights glow a little softer, kitchens carry the memory of cinnamon and warmth, and the dark feels less like an ending and more like a cradle.

This is the night between, between longing and fulfilment, between promise and presence. We stand with tired hearts and hopeful hands, carrying the year we’ve lived, its griefs and its small, bright joys. Nothing needs to be fixed tonight. Nothing needs to be proven. Love doesn’t hurry.

Somewhere beneath the noise, a deeper truth hums. God doesn’t arrive with spectacle or certainty, but with vulnerability. Not above the mess, but within it. A child’s cry breaks the silence, and the universe leans in. Power chooses tenderness. Eternity borrows time.

Christmas Eve invites us to rest in that holy nearness. To believe that light can be born in the darkest places, including our own. To trust that gentleness is never wasted, and that hope, however fragile, is enough to carry us through the night.

So we wait. Candles ready. Hearts open. Tomorrow will come. For now, this is enough.

Bible 40 Themes 01 Creation

Creation begins in silence, in that deep and holy mystery before words, before time, before even the first breath. Then comes the divine utterance that breaks the stillness. God speaks, and everything stirs into being. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It’s such a spare line, yet it carries the full weight of existence. The writer of Genesis doesn’t try to prove God’s reality or outline his methods; the story simply opens with him, because nothing else can be understood without that beginning. Every galaxy and mountain, every tide and atom, rests on that quiet, intentional act of love.

Creation isn’t something sealed away in ancient history, it’s the heartbeat of the present moment. Each sunrise that washes the world with colour, each newborn cry that breaks into the air, each stubborn seed pushing its way through dark soil continues that divine creativity. God didn’t set the universe spinning and then step back. He remains the sustaining pulse of life, still speaking light into our darkness, still breathing hope where we’ve forgotten how to look for it. Creation tells us that life isn’t random or accidental; it’s a gift, shaped by love and held by grace.

When we pause beneath a starlit sky or feel the wind threading its way through the trees, something deep within us recognises the signature of the one who made us. We’re woven into this creation too, shaped from dust yet filled with God’s breath. That truth draws out both wonder and responsibility. If creation is sacred, then caring for it becomes sacred as well, whether that means protecting forests and oceans, tending to our communities, or treating one another with gentleness and dignity.

“In the beginning” isn’t only a statement about the universe’s first moment; it’s an invitation for us now. Each day we’re offered the chance to begin again, to create goodness, beauty, and peace in the small spaces we inhabit. The same Spirit who hovered over the waters still moves through us, steadying us when life feels chaotic, guiding us when the shadows seem too deep, and helping us shape something new, hopeful, and alive.

This is the first of a series of posts outlining 40 themes of the Bible. Next